A one-car automobile accident in which the vehicle veered off the road, rolled over, and then burst into flames was recently investigated. Following the accident, it was noted that the front tie rod that controlled the left front wheel of the front drive vehicle was broken. All of the experts, both plain-tiffs' and defendants', agreed that the part had not failed in a classical fatigue mode as one would initially expect. The defendants' expert predictably stated that the tie rod brokd as a result of the accident: it was not the cause. The plaintiffs' expert pointed out that the ball joint in the tie rod failed at a location that should have been the strongest of the several possible. Photomicrographs of mutual indentations on the subject part and on a statically failed exemplar part indicated that failure occurred in use at a load much lower than the design load. It was then shown that pre-existing crack from the manufacturers forming process was probably responsible for the unusual failure of this particular part and that its failure caused the accident.
An unusual failure of an automobile steering component
Ein ungewoehnliches Versagen eines Fahrzeuglenkungsbauteils
1983
5 Seiten, 10 Bilder, 2 Quellen
Conference paper
English
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